Born On This Day, 1950: Howard Ashman

Jim Burroway

May 17th, 2016

(d. 1991) Playwright and lyricists, Ashman first achieved acclaim for his collaboration with Alan Menken on Little Shop of Horrors. That collaboration put the songwriting duo on a course for greater hits to come. In 1986, Ashman wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation and wrote the lyrics for two new songs, “Some Fun Now” and “Mean Green Mother From Outer Space, both of which received an Academy Award nomination.

In 1989, he was co-producer, lyricist and occasional writer for Disney’s The Little Mermaid, the animated blockbuster that had overnight saved Disney from what appeared to be imminent bankruptcy after a long series of flops since the death of Old Walt. It was Ashman’s idea to give Sebastian the Crab a Jamaican accent, and the calypso song, “Under the Sea,” earned Ashman and Menkin the 1989 Oscar for Best Original Song. Ashman died in 1991 of complications from AIDS shortly after completing work on the Disney films Beauty and the Beast from his death bed, and before he could complete Aladdin. After he died, three of the songs from Beauty and the Beast were nominated for Best Song at the Academy Awards, with the title song winning the Oscar. Ashman was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 2001, and Beauty and the Beast is dedicated to him. Ashman was survived by his partner, architect William Lauch.

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